Kaleb's Critters
by AbsoluteIndifference
Summary: How do we differentiate man from beast?
1. Chapter 1

Creaking. Everything creaked in her house.

The floorboards, the rocking chair, the bedsprings, the kitchen counter, her ancient, brittle bones: all creaking; all screaming for an end. Hooves cracked with age, the last great stewardess of the Royal Unicorn Families settled herself down into a semi-conscious state of repose.

Her grandson waited. At times, it seemed like waiting was all he was good for... not that waiting was necessarily a bad thing. As his grandmother, a great mare, once said:

_Good things come to those who wait._

She was right, in some ways. The pristine, white unicorn colt was born sickly, and, as a child, was thinner than most fledgling pegasi. Discouraged, he was assured by peers and relatives alike that he would be handsome. So he waited, and his body grew into something noble: something eye-catching. Fillies' heads turned whenever he trot by.

Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns accepted him for his academic prowess at a rather young age, but quota had been filled, and he was put on the dreaded "VMS List." He waited. Somepony died in a tragic accident, and, suddenly, he was in: learning from the greatest mages ever to walk the plains of Equestria.

His grandmother, red fur dulled from countless years under the sun, had summoned him here, to the oldest standing home in the town of Stableton—the closest settlement to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters—and now he would wait. With over a hundred years of life weighing her down, the matriarch was to be respected, no matter the personal cost. He loved the old mare dearly, and any time spent with her was valuable; any knowledge she shared, priceless.

She shifted, facing him from her place on her slow-rocking-creaking-groaning-moaning chair. The wood was old. The house was old. All aged together, blending into one great, dying creature.

A slow blink. Two. Four. Closed.

Relaxed, the Matriarch opened her mouth and spoke.

_It's been many years since I've last told this story, and my body grows weary of late. My time is coming to an end. I appreciate that fact, and take no misery in it. Looking back on my long life, I take heart in knowing that I lived it to the fullest, just as he would have wanted me to. _

_ I bore witness to the rise and fall of a great kingdom, and played an important part in the birth of its successor. _

_ I have loved, and been loved for longer than most, but will never take it for granted… though, never is not as prolonged as it once was for these old, frail bones. _

_ I have felt life grow within me, birthed seven fine additions to the great chain, and watched them mature like any mother would. First steps, first words, first schools, and first loves: all are remembered and cherished._

_ Yes, I have lived honorably, and it is for this reason that I cannot let my final story go untold. Because without it, or, more specifically, the one who leads it, my exceptional life would never have been._

_ This is the tale of a man: a man named Ezra._

Like a statue, young Jade Sparkle sat, waiting. The colt smiled: this was to be one of the good things.

Only good.

**Chapter One**

Public transportation is a gateway to mental disorder.

"Bench's full, Fruit. Y'll have to stand."

It leads to self-pity, followed by loathing, then, oddly enough, a kind of false narcissism.

***District Seven… Please, watch your step***

"What are you looking at? I'll put yer lights out, Meat. Savvy?"

No one understood the change, but it was true. Someone—Jacobson had been his name—did a study or something on it out of IC-U. The Inner City Autocarrier Line did, indeed, have an adverse effect on people.

"Yeah, I'm savvy, ya fuckin' wino."

"What'd you say? You tryin' ta start somethin'?"

"Nothing. I didn't say a thing."

Yet, despite the hype over this discovery—and the plethora of public petitions for mag-lev engines that didn't sterilize passengers—it all came down to one thing…

***District Six… Please, watch your step***

"That's me. Have a nice day, Sablehound."

"Why you little…"

"Bye!"

… No one gives a damn about the inner city. That, and "Autocarrier's" was the cheapest form of transportation around to date.

"I'm coming for you! I've seen your face!"

Ezra Fairweather, an unemployed, educated street ruffian and all around loveable inner city lug, stumbled out of the idling mag-bus and into the stuffy, polluted, early morning streets of the _grand_ city of St. Metropolis.

"I'll find you!" came another angry slur from the ratty vehicle dipping up and down in the air behind him.

Ezra just smiled, sucking in a lungful of soot and chems from the glue factory one district over. He didn't bother looking back.

"Aw go stim your brain to jelly ya cheap shit," barked the bus driver. The man was probably a junkie himself—Ezra noticed the telltale wrinkles about the eyes—but appearances are important for a government worker, so he kept silent. It wasn't until he heard the hiss of pneumatics signaling the bus's departure that Ezra looked over his shoulder.

A quick flick of the wrist and a rude gesture at the departing human garbage truck later, he was off down the choked, winding streets of District Six. Sooty haze wreathed his body, a flowing robe of dirty air trailing his form as he went. Today, Ezra was on a mission, and the only thing that could stop him was himself, death, or an overseer with an empty quota-book.

He was walking to New Metro, and, once there, he had an interview with the Channel.

Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his purple corduroy jacket, Ezra shuffled on, kicking the occasional carton of refuse aside with his tattered nylon shoes. The baggy, ill-fitting pants he wore had gone out of style decades ago: they were his best pair. A sad smile twitched across his face as he passed by an old Laundromat, its front window still soaped over with declarations of "Bargain Prices" and "Two-Penny Tuesdays." When he caught sight of his reflection in the window, however, his smile faltered a bit.

Ezra wasn't an ugly individual, but, seeing him now, not many people would know that. The fresh, handsome face—bearing a striking resemblance to that of his father's, relatives would often say—was haggard and sunken. His hair was disheveled; his skin, pallid and stained with dirt, and it looked like he hadn't slept in years. The young man pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away. Now wasn't the time for remorse… but he gave into it anyway.

He should have listened to them: his father, his brother, his girl. Technicians. "Everyone is a technician," they said. "There are no engineering jobs left!" they warned. "What this country needs is more doctors, more agriculturalists, and, God forbid, more businessmen." Ezra sighed heavily, no longer riding high on hope for the day.

A piece of paper fluttered by, borne on the fetid breeze that filtered down among the under-streets, and Fairweather contemplated turning back. It was a long walk to New Metro, and none of the busses he could pay for went that far into the suburbs. This was a fruitless venture. There were no jobs left for a technician: he knew that. A four year graduate of the Inner City University couldn't get anywhere with an engineering degree.

Ezra was wasting his time, and he knew it.

_"No. The flyer said there were plenty of openings." _

_ "No one watches that damn station anymore! Network's where it's at these days! How could there be plenty of openings! It. Is. A. Scam."_

Ezra ground to a halt, his beaten shoes scuffing the pavement. He looked up at the orange corona of dawn bleeding through the pristine skyscrapers of New Metropolis, and held his breath. The streets reverberated with the sound of an early morning tanker leaving the Outer City Shuttlestation. Grimy windows on the apartment to Ezra's left flexed inward as the behemoth of a ship crawled across the breaking dawn like a bloated, flying whale. "One day, I'll live up there," he'd told himself when he was but eight years old. "One day, I'll look down on this place and laugh, because I'll know I've made it. I'll know I'm somebody."

Yeah, well… not today.

Ezra turned, prepared to make the long, early morning journey back to the Office of Inner City Employment—hopefully early enough for a weekend community service position—in District Four, when he caught a metallic glint in the corner of his eye. He stooped down, fumbling past an old Kleenex box and a crumpled up fast-food container to find the source of the brief morning glare. Once the refuse was gone, the dismal man grinned wider that he had all day.

It was a piece of old-world currency; a quarter, they called them. A flat disk of silvery metal—about two centimeters in diameter—with a man's face embossed into the front. The title of the old world government and a few platitudes also adorned the small coin, hugging its round, ridged edges. Ezra knew that if he flipped it over he would find a picture of a noble, but unfortunately rather extinct bird, and further useless platitudes written in a dead language: one used only by the Vatican nowadays. These little guys were worthless, wholly incomparable to plastic rotobucks, but someone, a long time ago, decided they were signs of good fortune, and now, if one was blessed enough to find the rare coin face up it is said that he or she will have good luck for the rest of the day.

Picking the magnanimously placed artifact up from the street, Ezra considered it with the air of a man who didn't believe in coincidences. He turned it over in his fingers, admiring its smoothness, tracing the rare groove and imperfection with his thumb. Turning on his heel, he slipped the coin into his jacket pocket and took another look at the skyscrapers of New Metro.

The buildings were beginning to wake up. Flagpoles extended and banners unfurled in the breeze, solar panels shifted to catch the precious rays of a slowly rising sun, and the daily sponsors slowly flickered to life on the wavering magboards of Outer City.

He made a decision.

The Channel building wasn't all that far… if he ran.

* * *

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"Oh-ho-ho! And he's down! World Champion Brian Dunning has just punched his ticket with only one round left to go! What an upset! Can Kristine make up the point? Will she go down as the only challenger in Roulette history to make it ten rounds?"

The television took up an entire wall.

"She's taking a minute to relax, shaking out her hands, and—oh? What do you make of this strategy, Jim?"

"Ah, it's an old one of hers. Plucking an eyelash: one of the many Inner City superstitions. Ms. Sorenson's been doing it since stage one, and it hasn't failed her yet, Dan."

It was inescapable: the screen was as wide as Ezra's girlfriend's apartment was long. Jim Donahue and Daniel Marbury, Channel announcers often featured in shows such as "Dog Whistle," "Escape the Rape," and "Fear Pong," were currently on screen. Fairweather could see them out of the corner of his eye. The two announcers' banter reverberated through the crowded hall, providing a welcome distraction for the anxious man.

"There are still two bullets chambered, and the referee is starting the timer right… now!"

There were more applicants here than Ezra was comfortable with: mostly Old Metro citizens like himself. A few of them were even dressed nicely, penning in the multi-faceted applications from the front desk carefully so as not to ruin their only good shirts with the leaky CAS writing utensils. They packed the large waiting hall, some lingering by the stone-faced receptionist in the corner, while others mingled in small groups, chatting nervously. An overseer stood at the entrance, clearly bored out of his mind, but keeping his hand on the crowd-seeder at his hip.

Most of them—far too many—had probably been in the building before Ezra had even reached the New Metro border. He'd gotten to the Channel Applications Services building too late, and now, in a first-come first-serve industry, his chances were slim.

"Kristina has thirty seconds to make the shot." They were faux-whispering, now. Can't break the poor girl's concentration this late in the game now, can they?

"The chamber has been rotated. Gun is up…"

Ezra clutched his lucky quarter so tight that his knuckles were bone-white.

_"There are plenty of openings," _He repeated to himself, _"There are plenty of openings. Plenty. You won't have to go out as a contestant. You have four years of education behind you. You can do better."_

"It's coming down to the wire here. Can Kristine pull this off?"

_"There are plenty of openings. Plenty of openings. Flyers don't lie."_

A loud crack shook the waiting room. Nobody flinched.

"Ooooh… It looks like this one's over folks. Once more, the Grand Prize of two million rotobucks will remain unclaimed. I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, Sargenta Bankers United, and wish our viewers a wonderful holiday weekend! Until next time, I'm Jim…"

"And I'm Dan."

"And this has been Russian Roulette!"

"Goodnight everybody!"

Ezra glanced at the screen, blinking at the wire-cam view of a blood-soaked table occupied by eleven or so slumped bodies.

"Goodnight?" he mumbled, incredulous. The man next to him, a somber fellow with a bit of a paunch who was the only other person in the room who seemed to be paying attention to the enormous television screen, turned to him.

"Reruns," he grunted, rolling his eyes. The wrinkles of unabashed stim use showed on his face, and his breath smelled of alcohol. He was wearing a rumpled tuxedo, missing two buttons and a cufflink, but, nonetheless much fancier than Ezra had cared to wear. He looked down at his ratty dress pants and corduroy jacket and frowned.

_"I really hope this isn't black tie."_

"You applying for 'contest?'" the pudgy man asked, raising a brow in Ezra's direction.

"No. Tech job," he answered nervously, uncertain how to proceed with the calmly intoxicated man. "Lights. Camerawork maybe… You?"

He gestures to the television across the room, currently spouting commercials. "Roulette."

"Mmmm…"

They went back to their anxious waiting. There was nothing more to say.

The commercial break ended quickly, because that's how the Channel works: always thinking about the viewer, them.

"Well hello there, Mate! Oi'm Kaleb Burnow, and this is Kaleb's Critters!"

Ezra perked up. Kaleb's Critters? That show was still around?

"Today, we're on a trek through the jungles of TB-881, hunting for the most dangerous, and, unfortunately, most well-camouflaged creatures around: the Sularan Dragonsnake."

A man of undetermined age stood on-screen, facing the camera, a jaunty smile parting his rugged, graying beard, and a jolly twinkle in his sky-blue eyes. He was wearing a canvas snap-up aussie hat, all-khaki clothing, and a leather belt. The absurdity of the outfit was overshadowed only the size of the weapon he was carrying, slung over his shoulder on one muscular arm. The barrel had to be about an inch in diameter, and the gun itself looked like it would knock Ezra over if he'd tried to shoot it.

Kaleb Burnow: the man, the myth, the legend, and the most stereotypical expression of Australian manhood on the face of the earth. It was funny now, but when Ezra was young, Mr. Burnow was the epitome of masculinity, and, consequently, his idol. He'd loved Kaleb's Critters and had often forgone homework every Tuesday night when it came on. The seasons were pretty far apart, considering the distance the film crew had to travel and so on, but that was fine by him. He didn't care, as long as he was able to get his weekly fix of hunting dangerous animals and conquering primitive outworlders.

Ezra's parents allowed it, because, in the larger scheme of things, that was the least violent show on the Channel.

"Hold it, Sage. R' you getting this? Come closer, mate." The picture jiggled, likely from "Sage" the cameraman jostling to reach Kaleb, who lay crouched behind a fallen tree. "Right there, ya see it? Sularan woman. Gatherer, Oi take it. Notice the compound eyes that circle 'round the back of her head: perfect for spotting predators and keeping tabs on the rest a' her tribe. And the third set of arms, there, used mainly for cradling her young… simply remarkable."

When Ezra had been accepted to IC-U, he stopped watching. This was mainly because anyone caught watching the Channel on school grounds was ostracized as a "commercialist." Professors lambasted the Channel, the Network, and the Station endlessly, preaching anti-entertainment age lessons from day one. Liberalism in its finest form.

Eventually, Kaleb's Critters just fell off the face of Ezra's memory… until now. If he hadn't come to the Channel applications building he probably would still be ignorant of the show's continued existence. He didn't watch the television, and no one ever thinks they'll ever stoop to applying at the Channel when they leave the University. It was altogether possible that he would never have watched Kaleb again in his lifetime.

"Let's bag her." There was a gunshot, followed by a drawn-out, primal wail. Ezra watched Kaleb skin the Sularan for a bit, wondering how the Australian Legend could have stayed so fit as he began pointing out the body parts unique to the being he had just "bagged." It looked like he barely aged a day from when Ezra first watched his show as a child. He took a look at the date on the show calendar in the top right of the screen.

July 21st, only a month ago. This was a recent one then, and he wasn't tricking himself. This was turning out to be a rather interesting day.

Ezra watched for a bit, still working the quarter he'd found between his fingers. He quickly became bored, however, and tried to strike up a conversation with the guard at the door. A hard shove and one nasty bruise later, he gave up, and sat waiting, alone. The cold receptionist began nasally droning out names soon afterward.

"Clarissa Aaronson."

_"Alphabetical, last name… there are plenty of spots: I've got this,"_ Ezra rapidly calculated, beaming to himself. Finding a position that fit his qualifications would be a snap.

"Canis Jones."

_"Okay… Alphabetical, first name. That's better."_

"Ronald Berkenhaur."

Ezra cringed and deflated completely, dropping his smile and grimacing in frustration. _"Order of arrival... shit…" _Hunching his shoulders, Ezra prepared himself.

He was in for a long wait.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Ezra Fairweather…"

"Mmmph." It was too early… Jenna, you cruel mistress.

"Ezra Fairweather…"

What could possibly be so important that Jen would wake him after so little rest? Ezra smelt no breakfast cooking—the air was actually rather ripe with the stench of carpet oil and monotony, not fried wheatcakes, Jenna's culinary equivalent of a balanced meal—and the steady blaring of a television in the background was strangely soothing. Ezra's girlfriend rarely watched the TV…

"Fairweather?"

A small shiver traveled down Ezra's spine. Damn was it cold. He really needed to get the radiator fixed before he caught a chill. By the sound of Jen's voice, she already had one. She resonated like a mag-bus recording.

Jenna sighed heavily. "Soto Nihorima."

_"What the fuck?" _That was strange. Ezra had been living with Jen for nearly three years, and he'd never known she spoke Japanese. _"I guess you learn something every day… like how Jenna knows the pin to my bank ca—"_

Remembrance jolted Ezra awake like an overseer stun-rod. He bolted to his feet from the chair he had been snoring in and glanced frantically about. He was still in the CAS waiting room. Jenna wasn't there. She'd taken his entire savings and kicked him out of their shared apartment in District Nine. She said he'd never amount to anything and that he owed her for the time he'd lived in _her_ home.

Ezra's heart clenched in his chest, and tears threatened to spill from his leaden eyes, but he held it back. He'd cried enough already, and now it was time to prove her wrong.

"Marian Helms…"

"Shit!" Ezra breathed, garnering attention from the few men and women still waiting to be called. Ignoring the stares, he quickly strode over to the receptionist's desk—_"not Jenna"_—and fidgeted impatiently behind one Ms. Helms as she received calculated instructions from the woman at the desk.

Apparently, she was applying for contest on some show called "Roaming Charges."

When the portly woman finally moved along, escorted to the door behind the front counter by another bored-looking overseer, Ezra rushed forward. He placed himself right in front of the emotionless secretary, right between a stack of contest apps and a procession of wood and rubber stamps, lined up like soldiers on parade. "Ezra Fairweather. You called me?"

The receptionist—her nametag said "Sue" but her pantsuit screamed "Disgruntled Wage-Laborer"—glared at him, her lips twisted into a sneer of distaste. Her glare never wavering, she rifled through the stack of numbered applications to her left, pulling one out seemingly at random.

"Fairweather," Sue's eyes flicked to the paper she'd withdrawn briefly before going back to indignantly glaring into his own. "Technician… You're lucky: there's one technical opening left." She reached into a drawer at her side, whipped out a sheet of reflective, green stickers, placed one on his application, and then stamped it with a rubber brand from the regiment for good measure. "Show this to the officer at the door, and he'll take you where you need to go. However, if your attention span is as short in the waiting room as it is on the job, I wouldn't bother. Save yourself the humiliation."

"Heh, thanks ma'am, I'll take that to heart. Oh, and I'm sure you'll get that promotion you've been working so hard for," Ezra replied, simpering as he rounded the desk, paper in hand. "Really, the rug burns are hardly noticeable."

Not sticking around to witness her reaction, the beaming man slipped through the waiting double-doors and found himself in a hallway of dull, tan drywall and lush carpeting. Another hallway intersected with his own a few yards further. After a quick walk, Ezra looked around the corner for the overseer he'd seen leading Ms. Helmes away. Not seeing anyone, he settled for leaning against the wall and waiting. It was then that the tidal wave of relief finally rushed in.

There was an opening! Ezra practically shook with anticipation: this was the first techie interview he'd had in months, and he resolved to make it the last one he'd need for months to come. If he nailed this interview, Ezra wouldn't have to pray to make the weekly quota for community service at the ICE office in District Four. Channel positions—as long as they weren't for "contest"—were generally very steady, consistent occupations, if not exactly glamorous.

Ezra hadn't stopped smiling since he'd gotten past the receptionist. No more meter counting. No more demolition work in the central districts. No more power washing the streets. No more "cadaver clean-up," and, best of all, no more long hours at the waste compactor. A short bark of laughter escaped Fairweather's lips, absorbed by the dull, plastered hallway walls.

He fucking hated compactor duty.

Now, finally, Ezra could leave that behind and do a job worthy of his education, or, failing that, one that had something to do with electronic maintenance. Hell, he'd even settle for changing on-set light bulbs. As long as he never had to cart another cube of crushed debris, fecal matter, and putrid flesh to the central incinerator in District One, Ezra was satisfied.

Maybe, just maybe, Jenna would be too.

Fairweather shook his head, not allowing his good mood a chance to falter. He needed to focus on the interview. Finding a place to sleep that night, and perhaps reconciliation with Jen, could wait until afterward. Ezra grinned. He couldn't wait to tell her: she'd be thrilled.

Footsteps, muffled by the excessive carpeting, sounded from around the corner. The giddy human tensed up a bit, but didn't lose his smile. Here came the overseer. Ezra leaned against the wall, hands at his sides, waiting.

A submissive posture was key. He didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea, and overseers were notoriously jumpy. Ezra had been to a fair amount of "peaceful" protests at the University to know that first hand.

The footfalls grew louder, and Ezra watched carefully from the corner of his eye as a proud member of Metro's police force rounded the bend to his left. The officer started and took a step back, his hand lowered to the stun-rod at his belt and causing Ezra to flinch. Fairweather kept his eyes low, intent on tracing the holes in his shoes. Passive enough? Probably. An effective deterrent after startling a contest-jockey? Ezra could only hope this one was having a good day.

Luckily, the tension died down almost immediately. The overseer gave an annoyed snort and cleared his throat. "Papers," he gruffly demanded, holding out a gloved palm. The man's fingers twitched impatiently. Ezra let out a breath he was unaware he'd been holding and held his application aloft. The guard quickly snatched it away and began scanning the top row.

He was in his mid-thirties or so: well fed in Ezra's point of view but not quite overweight. The Overseer's Helm he wore was skewed slightly, the upper-case "C" embossed in its forefront leaping out in contrast with the white casing of the protective headgear. He wore no nametag—few did—and his dark blue uniform was rumpled from overuse. Fairweather felt his eyes drawn to the weapons at the guard's belt: a short, handle-less, ebony rod and a small firearm. He wondered why contest-jockey's were so well armed. What'd they expect, a riot in the Channel lobby? Terrorism?

St. Metropolis loved its television. No one would dare strike out at any of the three major stations. If you were crazy enough to try there was no support from the populace; if you were caught, no sympathy either. No… It was more likely that one of the other two stations would stage a raid on the CAS. But even then the chances were slim. If the Network or the Station really wanted to hit a Channel building it would be the television station headquarters in District 24, not Applications Services.

So why the weaponry?

The overseer's brusque voice snapped Ezra back to his senses:

"Cut the staring," he grunted, eyeing Ezra like a jittering sablehound might eye a particularly offending mound of rubbish: with equal amounts disgust and dark anticipation. "You're in room twenty-two nineteen Mister… Fairweather." The guard narrowed his eyes, looking Ezra up and down one final time before turning and walking down the hall. Ezra just stared after him, unsure what to do. Search or follow? "Let's go, Innie!"

_"Follow it is, then."_

Ezra rushed to catch up with the overseer while managing to walk at a safe distance behind the gruff officer. He followed for God knows how long, twisting and turning down too many hallways and riding up and down too many elevators to count. The numbers posted on each wooden door alternated without rhyme or reason, leaving the numbly plodding man in a daze. He could have sworn they'd been walking in circles, but, then again, he also could have sworn he never gave his girlfriend the pin to his bank account.

Fairweather groaned, eliciting a glance from the overseer. Thinking like that would get him nowhere, but he couldn't stop. It just kept cropping up: the love of his life had kicked him out and left him broke on the street. What did it matter that his thoughts were self-defeating anyway? He wasn't going anywhere, was he?

It was then that he almost ran into the stiff body of his armed escort. They had arrived.

Ezra's nameless overseer stood in front of a polished oak door, just like every other door they'd passed so far. It was one polished slab of wood, adorned with a dull, metal placard with the number 2219 etched into it. Despite the mundane nature of the room's entrance, Ezra felt excitement—along with a heady dose of fear—begin to well up inside him after the seemingly endless trek deeper into the facility. This was it: a chance at an occupation worthy of his education.

The guard grunted something unintelligible, handed Ezra his application, and moved away. He receded down the hallway to Ezra's left, his footsteps swallowed by the lush carpet as he disappeared around another corner. Fairweather didn't care. The door was all that mattered now. With an appropriate level of trepidation, he reached forward and rapped on the cold, oaken wedge between him and the possibility of cold, hard cash.

"Come in," rasped a voice burdened with a highly cultured Outer City accent. Ezra pushed lightly on an indent in the wooden paneling, just above the center of the door, and the polished slab slid into the wall, revealing a modestly decorated office. There were no windows, and the walls were made of the same dull, tan plaster of the hallways behind him. An occasional hanging oddity broke the monotonous expanse of drywall: a painting—watercolor—of the Appalachian Mountain Range, a diploma of sorts on the far wall, a tribal mask made of an indistinguishable red material, interwoven with dried reeds, and, oddly enough, a volleyball situated in the center of a glass case.

In the center of the room, standing tall atop a plastic carpet covering, was a desk: modest, as was the rest of the office. A personal touchboard jutted from the center of the humble mesa, flanked by a bowl of various styluses, a lamp, and a glass nameplate. There were no photographs. Apparently, Mr. Nowell—the gold leaf on his nameplate proclaimed this to be his title—had no immediate family, or even pets, that he found worthy enough to occupy his desk.

Looking at the man now, Ezra thought he understood why.

Lounging languidly in an upholstery-coated rolling chair, the man who would be conducting his interview eyed Ezra disdainfully. He picked idly at the fibers of his charcoal black suit for a moment before clasping his thin, spectral hands tightly under his pointed chin, drawing attention to the contemptuous frown he wore. A pair of golden irises shone like beacons from his gaunt face, tucked below a swatch of greasy, black hair. Ezra was fairly certain those were contacts (they were all the rage with the citizens of New Metro), but when he approached the well-dressed Channel interrogator he couldn't tell.

Nowell motioned for Ezra toward the small chair erected in front of his desk. Fairweather handed him his application, and the ethereal man sneered bitterly. Taking the document, he held the paper between two fingers as if the glossy, ink-scrawled page were a piece of legislative refuse and scanned its surface quietly. They didn't shake hands.

"So, Mr. Fairweather," he droned listlessly, pausing mid-thought with a resigned sigh, "It says here you're a registered citizen of St. Metropolis. What District?"

"Nine."

"Mhmm… I suspected as much. Previous work experience? This says Office of 'Ice?'"

"Inner City Employment. I worked a few cycles of community service." Ezra kept telling himself that there was nothing wrong with that, but he couldn't help but feel embarrassed for admitting it to this man.

Nowell raised an eyebrow. It looked like a greasy caterpillar making love to his forehead. "Mhmmm." Fairweather tensed. That sound just didn't sit right with him. Coming from this man, confirmation sounded like an insult. "Just a few procedural questions, now. Please answer these to the best of your… ability."

_"Now he's just being rude," _Ezra thought, struggling to keep his face neutral. _"The bastard's not even trying to hide it anymore." _He held his tongue. Ezra knew an altercation here would ruin any chance he had at this position—whatever it was. Besides, to Nowell he was just another Innie, and his so called "rights" meant nothing on Channel property. He couldn't win.

A reedy whistling noise emanated from the gaunt man's nostrils as he let out a breath. "Have you ever been accused or convicted of any commercial misdeeds, felonies, or crimes against the city of St. Metropolis, the Province of New England, or the Republic of Western Nations? If so, what were the results of the proceedings?"

"I have committed no memorable crimes to speak of."

"Mhmm," Mr. Nowell crooned, leaning forward to tap a small stylus to the screen of his touchboard. Fairweather winced: that sound was becoming quite irritating. "Have you ever aided in petition for, participated in, or incited a riot with the express purpose of damaging this station—either aesthetically, financially, or in repute?"

"No."

"Right. Have you ever used stims, sable dust, raid-lite, or any other type of artificial mood-boosters, performance implants, or psychoactive drugs?"

"… Yes," Ezra conceded after a short pause, "but at the University everyone dusts up at least once a term. I tried a line of sable one year in and got a bloody nose." He paused again, looking across the desk to gauge Nowell's reaction. "Never tried it again after that."

The dark-haired man seemed to perk up a little. "University?"

Feeling a minute surge of hope, Ezra continued. "Inner City graduate… I was in the class three summers back." Nowell seemed to consider his answer for a moment before his eyes narrowed.

"Who was your 'Modern Philosophy' professor?" he sneered, leaning back in his chair haughtily. He thought Ezra was lying! How many people came in claiming they went to IC-U to warrant such suspicion? It was true that applicants for contest and employment at the three stations centered in St. Metro were rarely highly academic—that was probably why there was no "educational background" portion of the application—but did that really warrant so much skepticism when someone came in claiming they'd graduated from IC-U: one of the least prestigious colleges in the area? No matter, Fairweather would play along.

"Sorenson. Gene Sorenson." It was the truth.

Nowell looked surprised, but the emotion didn't last. "Degenerates of a Generation?"

"Zemo Woon." Once again, the truth.

The interviewer didn't miss a beat this time. "Commercial Cultures of the Western Republics?"

"Professor Ronald Hosmer." This was getting old, but Ezra knew he had this man beat. Nowell's sneer slowly turned upward into a genuine smile. It was the grin of a confidant in some great, disgusting conspiracy: one that spoke volumes, implicating Fairweather in some age-old plot; that of the educated.

Ezra felt more comfortable with the sneer.

"An IC-U man, eh?" Nowell groused. He gestured toward the diploma hanging from the wall to his left with a sweep of his thin arm. "It's good to meet a fellow alumnus. Tell me, what do you make of Professor Sorenson's recent refusal of tenure?"

Fairweather squinted at the dutifully framed papers on the western wall in disbelief. This man? A graduate of _Inner City_ University?! Seeing a student of the most liberal institution in the Northeast Province employed at a major station was exceedingly rare: working as a man of the Channel—the least intellectually conscious of the bunch—no less! No one coming out of the IC-U ever saw themselves in a Channel office, so what was this man doing there? Shit, what was Ezra doing there? Why was he there?

Money? Self-assurance? A desire for more?

Jen?

Whatever the reason, Ezra's interview just became that much less stressful. He didn't know whether to be disgusted or relieved.

"Honestly, sir, I thought Sorenson was a nutcase. His views on the nature of morality are antiquated and not conducive to progress. I'm not surprised to hear he was refused tenure: he's too controversial." Judging from the unpleasant little man's growing smile, Ezra had said exactly what he'd wanted to hear.

"I always thought exactly the same thing! He's truly an artifact of the 21st Century," Nowell ranted, the conspiratorial smile never faltering. He leaned in closer: "What house were you?"

"D'antonine: the engineering dorms," Ezra droned.

"I was in Scalia," Nowell countered, smirking. "A technical major, eh? Anyone ever tell you that was a bad idea?"

"Yes…" Fairweather hesitated, "Uh… shouldn't we get back to the questions?"

Nowell scoffed and waved an arm in negation. "Oh there's no need for that: those were just useless procedural requirements. You're perfectly qualified for this position."

Ezra let out an enormous breath of relief. He got the job…

"Wait, um, Mr. Nowell, sir?"

"There's no need to be so formal Fairweather," the gaunt man reached across his touchpad and shook Ezra's hand. "Call me Simon."

"Sure… Simon…" Ezra fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment. "What responsibilities am I expected to uphold while in this… position?"

"Oh the usual: maintenance and operations of the recording equipment for our next expedition. If you do a good job, the Channel will consider renewing your contract for the following year..."

Camerawork. That was fine. Ezra hadn't expected anything prestigious, but he was nonetheless slightly disappointed. He had studied computer programming and maintenance of complex electrical systems for his entire college career, and the only vocation he could find was being a camera grunt for a television station. Still… it was much better than community service.

Simon was still rambling about the process of contract renewal in that reedy, unpleasant voice of his when Ezra was struck by something he'd said earlier. He patiently waited for Nowell to finish his lecture on "acceptable applicant behavior" and cleared his throat.

"You said 'expedition' earlier," he said. "What, exactly, did you mean by that?"

Nowell gave him a blank look. "You… You don't know? Didn't Ms. Stebbins in the lobby explain the nature of the opening?"

"She might've, but she wasn't exactly civil abo—" Ezra was cut off by the whisk of an automatic door and the soft thud of boots on the bottomless, plush carpet of the hallway behind him. A deep, jovial voice boomed from the doorway:

"Oi! Simon! We take care a' Sage's replacement ye—oh!"

Ezra swiveled around slowly, aware of only one thing: a familiar, Australian accent. It couldn't be. Not possible…

He finished his turn and recoiled internally. There stood six foot four inches of muscle, graying hair, and khakis topped with a rumpled, dun-colored hat that shaded a pair of piercing green eyes and a dazzlingly white smile. Ezra was face-to-face with _him._

The man.

The myth.

The legend.

A huge, sun-bronzed hand rose in the still air before the stunned man, and Ezra quickly took it, calmly losing his grip on reality.

"Hello there," the man said, "I'm Kaleb Burnow."


	4. Chapter 4

_Ezra was a simple creature. Born on the day of his species' lord to a drunkard and his homely wife, he was raised to be exactly what his society needed: a dirty, splintered rung in the ladder of progress. Unfortunately, his path allowed for him to accomplish something more, and for that he was punished._

_ His first mistake was finding ambition; his second, acting on it. In a culture where men of his skill set were unneeded, Ezra was expected to flow with the great skewed and rusted chain of the masses. He was to be one with the great, hobbled swarm of the socially impoverished. His morality—as we understand the concept—was distorted by an insatiable lust for entertainment, and, when the time came, he was to become a part of that great, deadly diversion for the populace that still held some semblance of self-respect._

_ That was the path he avoided—the path of thousands before him—and his mistakes were my salvation._

**Chapter Four**

A peal of tinkling, feminine laughter smote the evening air.

"Stop it! *giggle* H-Hey! This is Jenna!—"

"—And this is Ezra!—"

"—We can't come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name and number—*giggle* Stop, Ezra!—w-we'll get back to you as soon as possible."

The voices stopped, and there was a long, toneless beep.

"Jen? Hey, it's me…" The cold, metal token-phone headpiece felt wrong in his hands: like a piece of shrapnel embedded within soft, virgin flesh. A light breeze rolled down the alleyway behind the CAS building and Ezra hunched further inside his jacket. "Listen, I, uh… I got a job. It's with Station Three…"

Ezra glanced down the length of the service-way toward the mouth of the alley and began fishing in his pockets. A rubbish car rumbled by, the compactor on board churning and crushing in a long screech of oxidation. Ezra's search became frantic. He checked both pants pockets, moving jerkily—grasping. His hand brushed against his breast and felt a familiar, smooth stiffness. A long, relieved breath escaped him.

Moving purposefully, Ezra lifted the small flap on his jacket pocket and removed a small photo. He held it close, face up, running a finger over the glossy image of a pale, russet-haired girl.

"The pay's decent, but I'll be gone for awhile…" Fairweather winced. "A long while."

She was smiling in that picture, eyes bright over rounded, cold-tinged cheeks. Something about that smile made Ezra sick to his stomach—flashes of greasy black hair and glinting gold eyes flitted through his mind's eye—but that wasn't her fault. Many things were, but his unease wasn't.

"Jenna, if you're there please pick up. It would make this a lot easier."

Ezra remembered when he'd taken that picture: their second date. It was autumn. He had still been in school then and being in a relationship had felt natural, easy even. They'd gone to eat at Reyno's on the edge of District Fourteen. Best Greek food in the city. He'd taken the photo with an old click-and-printer—on loan from his Epistemology class on assignment to document an instance provoking "thought"—outside the restaurant.

He'd told her he loved her that day. Now… well, now "love" wasn't the issue he needed to address.

"My new boss gave me three days to get my "tucker in order" and put my "skivvies through the washtub" before we got started. He actually said that, can you believe it?" Ezra chuckled giddily but then cut off, suddenly disgusted with himself. He forced himself to continue: "I'll be leaving after that, but until then the Channel rep' offered me a room here… unless I can find somewhere else to stay."

She wasn't this pale anymore. Ezra ran a finger down the edge of the photograph, wincing at how it pressed into his skin. A man on the corner sold her some tanning pills a year ago. The damn things made her queasy and she'd thrown up once or twice—maybe more while Ezra was out job searching—and he'd gotten scared. He asked her to quit taking them, but she refused.

It stopped a week later. Jenna said it was worth the color: that it made her feel good about herself. She regained the weight lost to sickness after a month, and lost most of the tan even sooner.

The man on the corner never came back to sell more. Ezra had made sure of that.

"I'm planning on accepting their offer for tonight," he murmured. "Please, if you want to talk, I'll be here at five o' clock tomorrow evening. I don't want to end what we had on such a sour note…" Ezra held his breath.

The line remained silent.

"Goodbye, Jen. Sweet dreams." He hung the phone in its socket with a sigh. With one last look at the photo before pocketing it, Ezra allowed himself a small, uncomfortable laugh.

She hadn't changed the answering machine. That was something, at least.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"This is your Exxy?"

The hangar was a cramped, oily affair. Faulty wiring and dim fluorescent lights cast a dull glow about the place. Several of the bulbs in the banks above were burned out; others flickered intermittently. Grease-blackened rags hung from hooks above a tool cabinet with rusty, yawning doors, and the whole room smelt like an inner-city chop shop. Ezra felt suddenly claustrophobic, but not because of the hangar's size—the interior was actually rather spacious. It was the ship, resting heavily on three massive steel treads, that dominated the room: restricting Ezra and Nowell's space and making the truly large space seem confined.

"Certainly is," Simon beamed, his reedy voice echoing across the metal-plated hangar. "Best exfiltrator money can buy!" The gaunt man walked toward a small office, his smog-jacket fluttering in the stale air, and disappeared through a thin door. Ezra was left alone.

A low, almost erotic, whisper of machinery thrummed in the stuffy storage space, and several lights flickered on across its massive, asymmetrical hull. Titanium panels, each wider than he was tall and pockmarked by re-entry burns, lay in piles around the massive vehicle's treads. Ezra could make out the bright yellow of vacuum insulation and massive tangles of wire through the holes the panels used to occupy.

"It looks like a wrecked pirate rig," Ezra murmured to himself, checking over his shoulder briefly for Nowell, disbelief heavy in his voice. "This is the famous 'Sheila?' Really?"

"That's what the Channel has us call 'er," came a deep, rumbling voice from underneath the beaten vessel. Ezra jumped, and a man of midnight complexion suddenly rolled from beneath the front-most tread upon a neon orange cart—how the massive vehicle had been lifted high enough for him to work down there was a mystery. Coming to an abrupt stop, the man rose to his feet. "But we prefer 'Satan's Gran'ma'."

He was about an inch taller than Ezra, his stained, yellow coverall contrasting heavily with charcoal skin stretched over firm muscle. Kind, rheumy eyes blinked slowly beneath a full head of cropped black hair streaked with fibers of butter-yellow insulation. The man looked strong enough to carry a wrench the size of Ezra's arm. Wiping a thin film of sweat from his brow with a pristine, white rag, the mechanic held a hand out for Ezra to shake. "Name's Samuel Ableman, but my friends call me 'Abe.'" Samuel flashed him a dazzling ivory grin. "You must be the new cameraman… Fairweather, right?"

"Yeah," Ezra smiled nervously, taking his hand. The shake felt of grease and calluses: the weathered hand of a workingman. Fairweather liked him immediately. "Sorry… How old is she?"

"Made in forty-nine, same as me," Abe chuckled, releasing Ezra from his grip.

"An original?" Fairweather ran his eyes along the behemoth explorer's hull. It surely looked worn enough to be '49 Exfiltrator. He turned back to Abe and raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you. You don't look a day over fifty."

Abe chuckled. "Flattery will get you everywhere, kid." He cast a loving eye over the ship. "I've been flying for Mr. Burnow for thirty years now…" Turning back to Ezra, he clapped him heartily on the shoulder. "She's the sturdiest ship in the city. You got nothin' to worry about."

Someone cleared his throat behind the pair. Looking over his shoulder—still held firmly in Abe's friendly grip—Ezra found Nowell smirking evilly at them.

"Samuel," he schmoozed, the words slithering off his tongue like a lazy snake. "Getting a bit friendly with the new hire are we?" Abe's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly before returning to their previous, exuberant state.

"Hello, Simon! God, it's been almost a month!" he released Ezra's shoulder and strode toward the greasy Channel Rep, his thick, gray machinist boots clunking loudly on the steel floor. "How's the wife?"

"Still divorcing me," Nowell's smile morphed into an annoyed frown, "same as last year."

"You must really love Republic paperwork, Simey," Abe pulled up in front of Nowell and roughly tousled his oily black hair. "What is this… the third time?" Simon scowled and pushed the mechanic away.

"At least I've been married, faggot," the Channel man growled. "If Burnow didn't insist I kept you I would've had you canned years ago."

Abe tutted, wagging a finger in Simon's direction: "Testy today, Nowell?" He crossed his arms and smiled. "You may want to be careful what you say around your elders."

Ezra never thought it possible that the gaunt ICU grad could get any whiter, but in that moment Simon Nowell paled. The Channel representative nervously searched the room, eyes flickering spastically as he slowly scanned the hangar. Ableman chuckled.

"Calm down, Simon. He's still at the Channel Office, downloading this run's research files."

Nowell visibly relaxed, letting out a pent-up sigh and slumping at the shoulders. He glared at the still giggling mechanic and snorted, his thin face twisting in anger. "Fuck you, Sam. That wasn't funny."

Abe just laughed harder.

Fuming quietly, Nowell turned and stomped back into the small hangar office, slamming the door behind him. Slowly, Ableman's laughter died down, and he cast a warm smile in Ezra's direction. "All right, you. Lets go take a look at your new station."

He began walking around the front tread of the exfiltrator and Ezra quickly followed, questions weighing him down as he ducked under a hanging clump of wires. "If you don't mind me asking, what was that all about?" Samuel glanced over his shoulder and shrugged.

"Simon's a bit of an ass, but you get used to him."

"I meant why did he get so nervous after you mentioned his 'elders?'" Ezra felt like he should know the answer to this one, but the nagging feeling of knowing who Abe was talking about was offset by total inexperience with the other members of Sheila's crew.

"Kaleb's a stickler for language and mutual respect among crew members," Abe snorted. "He's a bit old fashioned that way: a real hard-ass, him."

Ezra nodded to himself. That made sense. Mr. Burnow had been rather curt with him yesterday after the interview: he didn't seem like the kind of man who messed around, though his warm grin and fatherly personality spoke otherwise…

"Simey loves his job," Abe continued as the two men approached a small console jutting from the exfiltrator's titanium underbelly. "Traveling off-planet for months at a time gets him away from his ex-wives, alimony hearings, and empty flat." The black mechanic reached up, tapping three evenly spaced red buttons and yanking downward on a thick, gray pump. "Mr. Burnow may, technically, be an employee, but he holds the most Channel stock out of any filmman." Hydraulics squealed, and a section of the ship above split, lowered to the ground before them on gleaming silver struts until it was just a foot above the hangar floor. "Kaleb's been around a long time, and Nowell knows not to get on his bad side if he wants to keep his position."

The ramp floor creaked as the heavy man stepped upward, hydraulic supports sagging lower with the addition of his weight. He turned and gestured Fairweather aboard with a carefree smile and wave of his hand. Ezra paused, looking at the platform skeptically for a moment, before stepping onto the Exxy-Trap Entryway. "Satan's Grandma, huh?"

"Eh, she's an old ship, but she's a good one," Abe said, caressing a corner-support fondly. "A little rough around the edges, but I wouldn't trade 'er for the world."

"You sound like a pilot," Ezra chuckled, watching the mechanic work a small hand-crank, slowly raising the platform into the belly of the beast.

"I oughta," Ableman winked, "I do fly this tub when the mood strikes me… around every six months or so."

Ezra's eyes widened in realization: "You're the Dutchman?!" A memory, old and worn but still surprisingly vivid, permeated his senses. He was sitting in the wicker chair his father made in a fit of usefulness one Monday morning, watching the television. "Kaleb's Critters" was on, and the hunt had just ended.

_"Shiela, we've bagged our last one. Take us home."_

_ "This is the Flying Dutchman, calling in. S'good to hear your voice, Mr. Burnow. I'll be making a pass in five; just hold tight." _The camera panned to a low, grassy knoll, and a dull roar emanated from the television speakers. The hulking shape of an exfiltrator crested the horizon, the straining engines making the camera shake—_"Steady there, Sage_"—and the alien plants rustle and sway. _"Terrestrial Body – 2466, 4:25 Universal Time: this is the Captain of the Exfiltrator, Sheila, on approach."_

_ "Got one last catch to load, here, Dutchy. Then we can get Earthbound."_

The memory faded, and Ezra found himself rising into a dark room. Abe's chuckling vibrated the air to his left, and as the platform rose to a halt, fluorescent lights began to flicker on. "Yeah, that's me. Funny story, really. Kaleb started calling me that after my first run with the show." They were in a holding area of sorts: steel bars criss-crossed the sturdy, stagnant room, and Ezra noticed glaring red and yellow signs warning away the unwary from the electrified cages. "I was still a copilot then, and we had to make a water-landing to pick up one of Kaleb's catches—a Sleppa Whale—when the original pilot, Dante, froze up.

"It was stormin' pretty bad by the time we got there. Kaleb's dinghy was tossing and turning all over the place, and Jonathan 'Danger' Dante just stopped steering." Samuel set the crank into a locked position and stepped off the platform, moving past the charged cages and toward a more brightly lit corridor of the ship. "So I just put on the throttle an' scooped the boat up in the exxy-trap like one a' them water birds Kaleb goes on about. Killed the sleppa in the process—nearly cut the poor bastard in half—but it sure impressed Mr. Burnow. S'called me 'Dutchy' ever since."

Their footsteps echoed lightly around them. Lights glared from metal sockets, and the hallway met another, wider corridor lined with numbered, metal doors. The hall ahead continued for another ten yards or so before ending in a large flex-glass portal that Ezra assumed led to the cockpit. Unfortunately, it didn't appear he would be seeing the inside quite yet, for Abe disregarded the transparent doorway, turning left onto the adjoining corridor. The new cameraman pushed his disappointment aside: he'd explore the antique ship in due time, so for now, he would be content to follow Abe.

"So are you from the Eastern Republics, then?" Ezra asked, hoping to continue the conversation.

"Nah. I've never even visited." They passed a door adorned with a strange decoration. Frayed and fuzz-covered, an animal hide stretched across the dull, grey surface, giving it a splash of color and covering the metal number tag. "The name comes from an old legend from when people still used rigged sailing vessels. It was about a pirate ship that sailed both the skies _and___the sea for plunder, transitioning between the two with a violent—and very wet—crash. Hence, the 'Flying Dutchman'."

"That's… interesting?" Ezra had never really paid attention during his history classes at the University. Trying to imagine what a sailing vessel looked like, he nearly ran into the mid-aged pilot where he stood in the center of the corridor. He had placed himself in front of a door—the same make as the others lining the passageway—labeled "25" in black etching upon a silver tag. Scratched next to the tag, probably with a knife or razor, was a name:

SAGE

"Here we are," Abe said, eyeing the doorway with a sad, uncomfortable smile. "Your quarters." He pressed the door-indent, and it slid into the wall. The pilot stepped through, and Ezra, hesitantly, followed.

Fluorescent lights flickered—Ezra was noticing a pattern here—and a half naked woman emerged from the darkness. A dark-skinned beauty, lounging against a column of red velvet leafed with gold. Auburn curls flowed down soft, bare shoulders like a waterfall, ending just above her shoulder blades. An actress, Ezra recognized, from an old film. He couldn't, for the life of him remember her name… something Spanish…

Whatever the case, she was wearing far too much clothing.

The poster, beautiful as it was, seemed out of place in the small berth. Ten by eight walls glowed dully with bits of crafted metal, film, and glossy photos of alien landscapes. The bed was a cramped affair, tucked into the corner of the room to Ezra's left: directly across from the erotic poster. A desk of sorts jutted from the eastern wall next to a set of clothes-lockers, topped with a small touchboard and a jar filled with an earthy, red substance. There was little clutter, but the new cameraman was surprised nonetheless… it was as if someone had been living there just yesterday.

"We never got around to moving out everything," Abe sighed, "the lockers are empty except for a few tech manuals, so you'll have plenty of room for your things."

"Thank you," Ezra murmured, watching his guide carefully. The Dutchman suddenly looked very old, his eyes—bright and jovial not five minutes ago—were dull and listless, his ebony skin desiccated and aged. Fairweather wanted to help him, but feared overstepping his bounds. He'd just met the man, after all…

Abe ran a hand through his hair and sighed a second time, turning to leave the room. "Make yourself at home. When you're finished you can meet Nowell outside."

Fuck it.

"How did he die?" Ezra asked quietly, avoiding the pilot's eyes. He heard Samuel stop at the door.

Silence reigned for several, tense seconds, before Abe finally spoke:

"He left. Walked off in the middle of the night."

Ezra finally met the cheerless pilot's eyes, looking inward, trying to understand—to help. "Why?"

"Dunno," Abe grunted, giving Ezra a pained smile. "Dumbass smiled and waved at the main recorder, then just walked into the Sularan Jungle. We searched for a three weeks: nothing." He turned, slowly stepping through the doorway before giving Ezra one last backward glance. "Look around, then you can meet Simey outside." He smiled—genuine and kind under a pair of sorrowful eyes. "You're a good kid. I gotta check in with my copilot, but feel free to hit me up later, all right?"

"Thanks, sir. I'll do that." Ezra returned his smile best he could and the door slid shut, leaving him alone in the room of a dead man. Dead but still here.

He stood up and wandered the room, fingering the odd, metal objects fixed to the walls and looking at each photo carefully: an orange beach lapped by waves of deep blue and dazzling white, a rocky mountain range stretching into the heavens among clouds of grey, avian creatures, a man, alone and vacuum-sealed in a field of blinding, colorless snow beneath a blood-red sky.

Ezra leaned forward, looking closer at the final photo. The vacuum suit visor was opaque, reflecting the crimson sky above and obscuring anything that could be defined as facial features. Was this Sage? Or someone else?

Suddenly, the lights went out and a metallic screech rent the hull, making the ship shudder and jilt violently for a few seconds.

"DEX! What the FUCK!" a faint voice yelled, presumably from the bowels of the exfiltrator.

"It wasn't me! I swear!"

The arguing faded away into the ether, and Ezra carefully tried to pick his way to the door. His foot caught on the edge of Sage the dead man's small bed, and he felt gravity take hold. Stumbling, Ezra landed on his back and braced himself with his arms, barely avoiding a head injury. He had closed his eyes during the fall—a reflex—and quickly opened them upon landing safely. What he found gave him pause, and the new cameraman just lay on the thinly-carpeted floor and stared.

Pinpoints of light hung in the darkness, scattered like rain in the moonlight.

Stars… the ceiling was covered in glowing, painted stars.


	6. Chapter 6

_Sage Marinetta was dead, but that in itself wasn't much reason to mourn. Hundreds of thousands died every week in the contests—aired live for the pleasure of the raging, rabid public. Humans died, and no one cared. It was all part of the great vehicle of progress; of entertainment; of profit. Death is humanity's greatest ally, and ethics, the cornerstone of the old world, were no longer relevant: no longer conducive to the interests of mankind._

_ Morality died, emaciated, old, and rattling on the frail, polluted winds of evolution._

_ Sage Marinetta committed suicide on a distant world: he applied for contest with himself._

_ If his crewmates didn't care, then who would?_

**Chapter 6**

Hell is paved with the opposite sex.

"She changed the fucking locks," Ezra growled, punching the rec room wall in frustration.

"Bud, women are cruel, heartless skags. Get used to it."

"Lay off, Simey. Not everyone shares your perspective," Abe scowled, tossing another few plastic rotobucks into the center of the table. A loud crash reverberated from somewhere else on the ship. "Dex! What are you up to back there!" There was another crash, followed by muffled cursing. Abe sighed and tossed in one more chip.

"I thought you of all people would agree with me," Nowell sneered, meeting the pilot's bet with a clatter of plastic. "Women aren't exactly your thing, eh Dutchy?"

Abe glared, but said nothing. Ezra hardly noticed the conversation, steeped in his own problems.

It had been two days since his fortuitous job interview: two nights spent in a guest room at the CAS compound, two mornings of cold, unanswered phone calls (_*giggle*_ _Stop, Ezra!_), two round trips to District Nine on foot, through the low, morning smog, and two failed attempts at getting into the small, yet well-kept flat he had once shared with a loving woman.

She was there. Ezra knew she was there. Jenna wasn't supposed to head to the shops at noon, and even then she usually didn't leave until one. She was inside, hiding from him, ignoring his calls, chimes, and frantic knocking.

That bitch… why? Why was she doing this? Ezra didn't understand anymore. He just wanted a change of clothing… and maybe to talk. Leaving for three months without any kind of contact beforehand would spell the end—the _real_ end—of their relationship.

Something ugly wormed its way into his stomach, squirming and heavy.

Jenna was always so patient, but three months of nothing? Ezra would never see her again.

"Sometimes I wonder if he's been stimming it," Abe grumped, pulling the stack of rotocurrency that once sat innocently in the pot back to his side of the table. "I mean, its not really my business, but I can't have my sister's kid hopped up on chems off-world: she'd kill me if he bought it out there."

"Why you keep him on as a copilot eludes me, Ableman," Nowell groaned, eyeing the moving chips petulantly. "You don't owe your sister a damn thing, and he's completely useless. Did he even _go_ to the Trade Academy?"

A bulb in the light bank above popped, showering the card-table with bits of fiberglass before the room plunged into darkness. After a moment of silence, Simon, with obvious condescension, spoke again:

"I think I proved my point."

"God Dammit, Dex!" Abe shouted. Ezra heard a crunch of glass and a grunt, followed by the heavy sound of footsteps moving toward the rec-room door. His eyes adjusted; just in time to see the pneumatic gate slide open and Samuel stomp out, worn fists clenched menacingly at his sides.

DuWain Dexton III—"Dex"—was Shiela's copilot and Samuel Ableman's nephew. Ezra had yet to meet him, not because he was avoiding the meeting, but because the twenty-year-old trade student had been waist deep in titanium paneling, fuel pipes, and yellow vacuum insulation since yesterday. According to Abe, the man was convinced there was something clogging the fuel lines near the ship's aft that was affecting thrust capacity or something like that.

Unfortunately, half those lines fed into the main power converter—hence the flickering lights.

"The hell is the point of my job if I can't fire anyone?" Nowell groused in the dark. Ezra guessed the frustrated representative was talking to him, but didn't answer.

He thought about Jenna.

_"Get out, Ezra. Just get out."_

He got out, and now she won't let him back in. Ezra tried not to let his imagination wander—his clothing sold in Alley-West, old electrical parts pawned off in District Eleven, and bank account sucked dry to buy tanning supplements—but his mind betrayed him. Everyone was betraying him lately…

The lights came back on, beating back the darkness into scattered, oily shadows. A pool table, a bank of computers, a bar, polished to a mirror-like shine, and a basketball hoop jutting dangerously above the stairwell to the lower decks emerged to the low drone of Nowell's complaints, completing the illusion that everything was okay; that everything was as it should be.

But it wasn't. It fucking wasn't okay.

"You're not even listening to me, are you?" Simon huffed, clearly irritated. Ezra kept silent. He stared at the pool table from his position at the bar, following the creases and imperfections in the felt surface with his eyes. The sound of playing cards slapping and rubbing and mingling together drifted over. "Well screw you, too Newbie."

Plastic shifted across metal, cards were dealt, and heavy footsteps heralded the return of the second gambler. Rising from the lower decks, Abe passed under the basketball hoop, arms hanging limp at his sides. He crossed the room slowly—a wraith in steel-toe boots—and slumped at the card table with a weighty sigh.

"Dumbass electrocute himself yet?" Simon sneered, doling out two cards to each of them—one face down, the other laid bare for all to see. He was the dealer now. They had been switching. Fair. Nowell was unpleasant, but fair: every crewmember was just in his own way. Not like Jenna…

"Twenty-One?" Samuel sighed, "What happened to poker?"

"You're winning, that's what."

"Fine."

Both men took a moment to glance at their cards and place their initial bets. Ezra watched, waited, but didn't participate. He had nothing to gamble with anyway.

"You never answered my question," Nowell muttered, dealing himself another card: a two of spades atop his seven of the same. A thin smirk twitched at the corners of his mouth and he threw another ten rotobucks into the center of the table.

"He's fine… just nearly irradiated himself is all," Abe grunted. "Hit me." Another card joined his six—an eight of hearts. The pilot paused, checking his bottom card one last time, before pushing half his stack of coins into the center. He leaned back, frustration at his nephew melting from his complexion. Stone faced, yet casual, he spoke once more: "Why don't you head down there and help him, Ezra? You're an electronics man, right?"

That actually sounded great to the young wire-bug: he would do anything to distract himself from his estranged housemate back in Old Metro. Ezra slipped off the stool and quickly made for the pneumatic doors. He was through the threshold when an indignant squawk from Simon froze him in his tracks.

"Hold it, Fairweather. E - Engineering isn't in your contract: just camerawork. Get back in here."

Heartbroken, Ezra marched back in, and as he made his way back to his seat at the bar he listened as Samuel defended him.

"Oh give him a break, Simey. Can't you see he doesn't want to just sit around?" the pilot said, glaring at the other crewmember before casting Ezra an apologetic smile.

"Channel insurance doesn't cover electrical injury to those not specifically entitled to an engineer's position," Nowell droned, turning his attention back to gambling as he met Samuel's bet. The spindly man slid every rotobuck to his name into the pot, seemingly without a second thought. "He zaps himself and damages Channel property without proper vehicle insurance and it'll be _MY_ head, Ableman. You know that."

There was silence for a moment as the two men stared at each other, and, finally, Samuel let out a long sigh. "You're an asshole, Simon."

The pale channel rep just shrugged. "It's in my job description. Now are you gonna play or not?"

Abe gave one last look in Ezra's direction, and shrugged—_What can ya do?_ He settled back into his seat at the table and tapped his fingers on the two cards that lay face-up. "I'm good to show, if that's the end of it."

Simon nodded, smiling, and drew one more card from the pile. Plastic snapped and fluttered, revealing the four of diamonds. The representative looked down, smile faltering. "Uh… final bets?"

Deep, base laughter rolled throughout the rec room. "You haven't got a cent left, Nowell. Just flip 'em." Abe turned over his bottom card: another eight. "Twenty." The pilot smiled smugly and leaned back, planting his heels on the corner of the table with a small chuckle of victory. "Been waiting to gamble with you again for over a month, Simey. I hear we're goin' somewhere temperate this trip and I need a new bathing suit."

"Twenty-One," Simon sniggered, dragging the contents of the pot toward his side of the table. Samuel shot up, searching the table in disbelief for Simon's cards.

"Two, nine, thirteen… twenty-one…" the pilot deflated, snorting in annoyance. "Mother_fu_—"

Expletive half-completed, a sharp whine of static feedback drowned out his distaste in Simon's victory.

The ship's intercom clicked, and out poured the heavily-accented voice of the most senior crewmember:

_"Boys, this is Burnow on the line,"_—who else?—_"Stop sittin' around an' meet me in 'Processing'. The science package just came in."_ Ezra stood up, but the announcement had yet to end. The soft sound of a pneumatic door sliding open heralded the arrival of another voice on the line.

_"I'm *wheeze* here, hah… I'm here Mr. Burnow *gasp* what… where is it?"_ a young voice rasped, out of breath. The electronic speakers gave it a sort of keening, pleading inflection, preventing any real recognition of who it was.

_"Dexton? Blazes is wrong with you, boy? Stop drippin' coolant on the security systems!"_

_"Sh—oh shit—Shit, sorry Boss."_

_"And don't curse,"_ Burnow growled, the intercom reverberating with his annoyance. The system cut out—another eardrum searing whine—and the rec room dropped into silence.

It didn't last long.

"Idiot," Nowell chuckled, as he went back to collecting his winnings. "Didn't you warn him about that?"

"He's just excited, Simon," Abe sighed, running a hand across his face in exasperation. "It's his first trip out and he's excited."

Ezra could relate, honestly. This was a dream come true—aside from the whole "girlfriend stole his livelihood" thing…

"Fuck, man, we have too many greenhorns on this trip! I say we get rid of your fuckup nephew and keep Fairweather, here." The Channel rep cocked a thumb over his shoulder at him, and Ezra smiled nervously, glancing between Simon and Dexton's uncle. He didn't want to be the center of this conversation: not at all. "He's quiet, and doesn't break things. I like that in a cameraman." Nowell paused, turning around and giving the fidgeting man a critical look. "Sage was too damn peppy all the time, at least until Sulara."

"Leave Sage out of this," Abe growled, taking a step toward his wraithlike crewmate. "Burnow says we take them, so we take them, and that's final."

_"Oh please don't let there be a fight,"_ Ezra prayed to himself. _"Not now. Not because of me…"_

"I know that, Dutchy," Simon sneered, "I'm simply making an observation." He slung a small bag from his belt and dumped the pile of rotobucks he'd won inside, drawing it closed with a black, nylon string. Gingerly, the sack of money slipped into a pocket on the inside of his billowing smog jacket, and he strode toward the door. Looking back, he spoke one more time: "Mustn't keep the Boss waiting, eh? See you upstairs."

Ezra watched Ableman carefully, staying where he was. The seething pilot clenched his fists, grimacing angrily after the quickly striding Nowell, and ground his teeth.

"Come on, Fairweather," he snorted, shaking his head once; twice; thrice. His expression softened, and his body relaxed. Eyes closed, he smiled sadly. "Like he said: 'We mustn't keep the Boss waiting."

Together, they left.

_"The hunter awaits."_


	7. Chapter 7

**Who's a sexy bitch?**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

Paradise.

They were going to Paradise.

Gigantic computer screens wallpapered Sheila's Processing and Shipboard Homeostasis Chamber, displaying photos of yawning mountain vistas, fertile meadows, sandy beaches and dense forests. Huge, reptavian creatures, frozen mid-flap in an aerial ballet, flocked among the wispy cirrus of a cobalt, alien sky. Absolutely beautiful…

"We've 'ad probes seeding the atmosphere for nearly a year now, collectin' data, photos—the usual drill. Our science boys down in Research had a field day with this stuff when they finally got it in last month." Kaleb Burnow, lord and master of the hunt, stood silhouetted in natural beauty: a mountain among his extended family. He turned to the rest of his crew, eyeing everyone—especially Robin—with excitement. The camera angle on a snowy vista behind him changed, panning down rocky hillocks into a deep gully: an inhabited gully.

Squalid hutches of mud, rock, and weaved, gray plant life lined the edges of the depression along a rocky stream. Morning light spilled over the eastern edge of the gully wall, flowing among the stout structures to collect in the center, reflecting off a grinding and slashing knife of running water, cutting down deep through the middle of the primitive settlement. The only movement was that of running water and motes of floating dust, and Robin wondered briefly if the place had been abandoned.

Kaleb's thick, eager intonation quickly pulled the new cameraman's attention away from the screen and back to the "preliminary science briefing" as Abe called it. The crewmembers met with the Channel Research team on a rotation according to trip, and apparently it was Mr. Burnow's turn, so Robin tried to give him his full attention.

"There's a radiation field around the whole planet, so I hope you boys are up to date on rad-vacs, and the whole thing's on an eighteen hour rotation, giving us the perfect opportunity for some night hunting."

"Great," Dexton grumbled to himself. Scratching behind his left ear, he gave Robin a quizzical, bordering on pleading, look. "Hey, Fairweather? You been to the clinic lately?"

"I told you to get yourself checked up weeks ago, Dex," Abe growled, casting an apologetic glance toward Kaleb before turning the full force of his glare upon his unfortunate nephew, "and don't interrupt."

Dexton chuckled sheepishly, rubbing a thin shoulder. "Sorry…"

The copilot of Satan's Grandma was small, nearly a head shorter than Robin, but what he lacked in size, he made up for in personality. Dexton had chatted excitedly since they'd arrived, only stopping to rub a hand over his uneven buzz-cut or cry "tits" in frustration or enthusiasm or… well whatever reason someone would growl the word "tits". His uncle had to give him a swift kick in the calf so Kaleb could give his report, and he'd been generally well-behaved since. The boy was of average build, and his skin was a shade lighter than Samuel's under a dirty, red mechanic's jumpsuit. Thin lips twitching, he looked briefly to Robin for help, maroon eyes pleading silently.

Fairweather didn't know what to do. He'd just met the kid and had no idea what he wanted from him, so he just gave him a quiet nod. Dexton lit up, and, smiling, turned back to Kaleb's presentation.

"… four dominant species that we can identify: all generally quadrupedal in build, and, because of this, they vary greatly in size. We'll have more time to focus on non-sentients on the trip out, but I want to get you all up to speed on our primitives before we get going."

Burnow hunched, sliding into a seat at one of the terminals. Pressing a few buttons, the main viewscreen—a large LCD rig that was settled in the center of several smaller liquid monitors—flashed once, twice, three times, before resolving into a recording of a reddish cliff-side. A snow-spattered ledge had been carved into the rock, laced with caves at seemingly random intervals. A few of the cave mouths appeared to be covered with mats of vegetation or animal skins, while others remained empty, yawning and whistling in the winter wind.

"TB-1128 has one major land mass—not quite 'Pangaea' quality, but definitely large—surrounded by islands ranging in size between tha' of the Irish Collective and Old Austrahlia." Kaleb paused, taking a moment to gesture toward the main screen, and the snowy mountainside within. "These cliffs are located in the center of the northern-most island. Watch the cave to the far left."

Left-most? Robin focused on the cave furthest to the left, a bare hole carved out of the cliff. No decoration: did something really live there? It seemed pretty empty to him…

Nothing happened for several seconds, and Dexton got impatient.

"Boss, what exactly are we—oh! What the fuck?"

Robin, who had glanced at the complaining copilot, quickly turned back to the screen. Red maser-fire filled the monitor, soundlessly scorching the cliff-face for nearly a full minute. Eventually the attack ended, burnt door-hides fluttering in the wind, and the mountainside was empty once more. The probe had been firing at something, but what? And why?

"Language, Dex." Abe growled. Turning to Kaleb, he asked the question that Robin was afraid to. "Could'ja bring that up again? I didn't catch what happened."

"T'was just the probe's self-preservation programming kicking in," Kaleb explained, rewinding the recording. "Protecting the investment is priority two, here." Static gave way to the mountainside, wailing wind carrying flurries of snow among the caves. Robin concentrated on the left-hand side of the monitor, waiting.

Suddenly, the cliff moved.

Red fur and white feathers leapt forward into the open air, a swinging flurry of naturally camouflaged limbs that froze in mid-air at the touch of a button, a long shaft of material tipped with a shining, metal point stopped several yards from the camera. Its path had been clear: a direct assault on the Planet-Hopper.

"That, there," Kaleb began, pointing to the blurry mass frozen on-screen, "was a semi-intelligent life form: one of four suspected primitive species on 1128."

"Can you enhance the image?" Nowell asked, squinting through a pair of old-fashioned glass spectacles he seemed to produce out of nowhere. "I need something to give Marketing for the bi-monthly promotion change."

"Sorry, Simon," Kaleb chuckled. "The blightah moved too fast, and the probe went and blasted ev'rything in the canyon. A shame… would've made a good shot for this month's promo, you're right. If you still want a picture, Probe Seven took a couple stock photos of another, live group, or you can have a corpse analysis picture from this one." The screen changed, depicting what Robin assumed was the dim interior of one of the creatures' dwellings. Several shapes lay on the dirt floor, steaming in the winter air—whether from the cold or having been half-cooked by maser-fire the cameraman was unsure.

Another change, zooming in on a sharp, cracked beak-like muzzle, and deep, yellow, pupil-less eyes. Blackened and melted brown fur extended in clumps across the creature's body, topped with a layer of snow-white feathers from the barrel up. The camera turned, revealing a set of lengthy, majestic wings at the beast's sides, still twitching jerkily above two sets of limbs: a pair of scaly, clawed appendages extending from its feathered chest and two muscular, furred hind-legs below a feline tail.

It looked like a cross between a cougar and an eagle... and it was really damn familiar.

Nowell grunted and considered for a moment, adjusting his glasses—Robin tried to remember if he'd seen him wear them before—and running a thin hand through his long, greasy locks. "Mmmmm'corpses sell. Send me the analysis and I'll get it out to Daniels tonight. If you have any other good shots I could use those, too."

"Sure thing, Simey," the Australian mountain rumbled—an avalanche with an accent—before typing another command. The screen went dark for a moment, before reawakening to a rather similar scene, but with much less cooked eagle creatures. The recording centered on a small pack of the strange, combined beasts hovering in a tight circle around a smoking mountain bush. They hovered around, circling the burning plant, passing in and out of a stream of billowing smoke.

"Interesting little tidbit, here," Kaleb continued, "According to Doc Sisson, these things never touch the ground when they can help it: just float around in the clouds near the mountain peaks their entire lives on those wings of theirs. Apparently the group our probe destroyed was a family of exiles 'r a trading caravan of sorts."

At age seven, Robin saw a B.E. sprite—perhaps an ancestor of the canister of sprites Kaleb's team retrieved many years ago—at the New Metro Zoo on a school trip. The creatures on screen reminded him of the tiny iridescent aviators, resting peacefully on the clouds of sulfur vapor in its enclosure one moment; darting quickly in a burning, liquid dance the next. Rippling in their immense power, the beasts' wings beat in time, continuing their eternal battle against gravity as they stalked their flaming focal point like furry vultures.

"What's up with the smoke?" Dexton queried, closing in on the monitor to get a better look: watching the screen with equal parts amazement and disgust as the odd creatures flew round and round. "They—uh—They dancing? Like a ritual or something?"

Burnow smiled, clapping the young copilot on the back with a brief, barking laugh.

Dex flinched, but was soon smiling goofily at the hunter's kind attention. Was Robin jealous? No…

"Good question, boy, a proper question. I knew you were a good hire the moment your uncle brought you in."

… a little.

"The newer '77 Planet-Hoppers have their own little chemistry analyzers," Burnow explained, commanding a pop-up from the electronic ether in the bottom corner of the main screen. Colored spheres grew and bubbled outward—a molecular model of sorts, one that Robin couldn't even begin to understand—and slowly rotated around a central axis. "It took a sample of the cellulose of the plant the 'Gryphons'—research team's been calling them that straight out of an old Mythos book—are flying around, and came up positive for THC and plenty of other chemicals: relaxants, hallucinogens, you name it."

"So they're doping?" Nowell quirked an eyebrow, smirking at the circling, spinning, inhaling aliens. "They're more civilized than they look."

"Basically, yes," Kaleb conceded. "But let's move on." The screen split in four, one remaining focused on the "Gryphons," while the others quickly displayed far different scenes.

Gryphons. Oh wow it was a pack of Gryphons... that was so... coincidental? Groundbreaking? Looking around the room, noticing similar looks of mildly surprised recognition on the faces of his fellow crew members—and Nowell's near-orgasmic grin—Robin realized the true implications of this discovery: Channel ratings would go through the roof for this.

This could push their station—Robin's new home, really—ahead of the other entertainment guilds. Lord they would be rich...

Kaleb either didn't realize or didn't care about the source of his crew's excitement, simply turning their attention to the four screens with a wave of his arm and a huff. Robin quickly scanned the panes in _Sheila's_ virtual window:

Top left: a rocky sea-shore, illuminated by a gigantic, setting sun and an enormous bonfire. Five small, bipedal creatures galloped around the blaze, dancing through the sand and surf, watched by a much larger, meatier primitive with a pair of curvaceous, wicked horns atop its massive head.

Bottom right: a familiar clutch of huts lining a sunlit river. A raft—or rather, a ferry of sorts—drifted across the rushing waterway, pulled by two impossibly thin creatures of deep ebony. Lithe and antelope-like, they pulled themselves along on a rope of woven plant fibers to the riverbank: two stretched, black voids in a world of obscene color. The only break in their unsettlingly uniform bodies were their eyes: pupil-less, like the gryphons', and white. Four each, their insane contrast made Robin blink back tears of irritation. They were difficult to track, like a distorted image in the corner of one's eye.

Robin wondered if that was why he hadn't seen them in the earlier recording of that same valley.

Bottom left: static. Kaleb fiddled with the keyboard, muttering angrily. He punched in a refresher code—nothing—a beta override sequence—still nothing—and finally, with an annoyed snort, he stood up to kick the console.

The casing dented inward, and the screen cleared to reveal a grassy meadow bordered by an expansive lake.

"Granny's getting' spotty…" Kaleb groaned, adjusting the focus on the corner screen. Makeshift rafts were defined, contrasting against the calm, blue waterfront. "Fairweather, I want you to take a look at the wiring here once we're under way: can't have the monitoring systems on the fritz on the jaunt tomorrow night."

Robin started, turning away from the new picture to find Burnow giving him an appraising look. "Uh… yes?" Kaleb raised an eyebrow and Robin blanched, imagining his employment disappearing right before his eyes. "I mean—uh!—yes! Y-Yes, sir!" The big man stared him down another second, ice-chip eyes traveling right through him. Robin couldn't help but notice the hunter had grown out his hair: a bright white swatch of fuzz covering what was once bare skin—usually hidden beneath the folds of his trademark hat. Now he was hatless and smiling in amusement, canines glittering in the fluorescent light.

"Relax, kid. Just fix the thing, aight?"

Nowell raised his hand to speak, and Robin suddenly feared further boredom at the Channel Rep's greasy, bureaucratic hands, but the hand quickly lowered before Kaleb took notice. Simon sighed quietly, and Robin was relieved. It seemed that "Simey" would rather brave mountains of potential insurance paperwork over the Everest of "Kaleb's Critters," Mr. Burnow.

"Okay Mr. Burnow. I'll take a look before tomorrow night."

"Good, good," Kaleb nodded. "Now, as you can see, these 'marks' show signs of sentience, meaning they will be the focus of our second month of filming—so take a good look, Fairweather—and will be our most challenging game…"

Robin was engrossed in the shaggy, upright creatures in the top left of the screen. The smaller ones had become sluggish as the sun dipped below the horizon. They were digging into the sand, closer to the fire, and Robin was able to make out more than just silhouettes and Kaleb was droning and… and someone was tapping him on the shoulder.

The cameraman glanced right, catching Dexton giving him a sly smile. The fuel-greased copilot winked and gave him a thumbs up, thoroughly confusing the poor cameraman. Unsure of how to respond, Robin simply nodded, smiling stiffly, and tried to pay attention. He needed to know what he would be filming, no matter how boring or technical.

Compared to the things he'd seen on the show as a kid, these 'marks' seemed rather mundane.

"… think doing a live dissection of the 'Void Antelope' would be a good way to finish up the trip, seeing as they're by far the most impossible-lookin'. The only settlement of 'em we could find was this one here, so we'll leave the probe as a markah and make that our last stop.

"The 'Minotaur' is going to be our most challenging primitive mark, just due to size alone. I know it's hard to tell on camera, but it is easily the mass of an Great Angolan Elephant—and their horns'll spear you clean through, too, can't forget that…

"Anyway, it still shouldn't pose much of a threat if we do it right. The 'mark' I'm most anxious about'll be these little guys." A meaty finger tapped the screen that had been static only a minute ago. The picture had zoomed in on the raft in the middle of the lake, revealing three small quadrupeds, sitting back on their haunches at opposite edges of the raft and staring into the still water. Robin was surprised: they were the only ones wearing what resembled clothing.

Vibrant and colorful, they had small, cat-like heads that seemed frozen in place upon their shoulders; single, spiraled protrusions jutting from their brows. Ratty, burlap-esque clothing clung to their thinly-furred bodies, very poorly covering the small creatures' heads, horse-like tails, and various appendages. Short limbs ended in blunt stubs, and their eyes! They were enormous: bright irises and deep, expressive pupils taking up almost half of the primitives' diminutive heads. The only change in their flawless hides—besides their shaggy, impossibly colored manes rustling in the breeze, they looked artificial, like metal-plated trophies—were images, like tattoos, covering the area just above their hind limbs.

Robin considered himself no longer capable of surprise after what he'd seen that day, but he was wrong. Why?

Because he was looking at a bunch of god-damned unicorns.

They were small—colored like a box of glow-oil children's markers—but they were unicorn's nonetheless. Unbelievable.

The phallic appendage atop the closest unicorn's head glowed blue, and the water stirred. A squirming, writhing, prehistoric fish—_"No fucking way..."_—lifted into the dry air, thrashing about with its broad tail. It was flying against its will… right toward the creatures on the raft. Robin watched as the flailing impossibility slipped quickly out of sight: wormed into a stout basket at the center of the raft with a brief flash of silver and brown. The glow surrounding the statuesque creature disappeared, and soon the lake was still once more.

"What did we just see?" Abe asked, voice quiet; contemplative.

"That," Kaleb answered, tapping the trio of creatures on the screen one at a time, "was magic."

"Bullsh—crrrap… Bullcrap."

"Nice try, Dexton," the hunter growled, "I've been around since this place was still called Rhode Island, and I've never had the need for profanity, so keep your mouth clean, pup." Robin's coworker deflated, rubbing his arm sheepishly, until Kaleb spoke again: "But… you're technically right. It isn't really 'magic' per se."

"Psychokinesis?" Robin suggested, remembering an old pleasure book he'd read at the University—drugs giving people "psychic" powers.

"Yeah, like from the old raid-lite commercials!" Dexton piped, quickly recovered from his previous reprimand, much to his Uncle's visible chagrin. He cleared his throat: "This is your brain. This is your brain with the power of raid!"

"Possibly," Kaleb conceded, "but unlikely. Prof. Reichland thinks it has something to do with the radiation field 'round the planet. We're bringing him one—alive—for study in the city center waste storage bungalow, along with a sample of fish and several other small animals: the parallels in evolution interested our Research Head quite a bit, and he believes we can supplement our oceans and preserves with a few 'a them. There're two other variations of the 'unicorns' we've got here: one with just wings and another with neither wings nor rad-manipulators—like small, rainbow ponies—but Reichland only wants a horned one."

"We don't usually do 'alive' very well, Boss."

"An' whose fault is that, Dutchy?" Kaleb teased, swinging around in his seat to face his pilot. "Certainly not mine! The restraints were your job last trip, if I remember correctly." He was referencing something Robin was unfamiliar with, but he assumed it had something to do with the odd stains he'd seen on the floor of the holding bay. "We're takin' them at a distance so's to be out of range of their manipulation. Surprise is on our side, boys. Don't fret." Kaleb stood and began pacing the room, stopping in front of each of them in turn. "Since this is a Class VI terrestrial body, we'll have to take extra care not to leave anything behind: no plastic wrap, clothing, tools. We're also, as usual, going to steer clear of any and all major population centers." The screen flashed, revealing a great stone fortress at the foot of a steep, jagged mountain range. Small hamlets stretched outward like District Rings from the central structure, petering out at the edges of the valley.

"Quaint," Nowell snorted, cleaning his fingernails with a razorblade he kept in the seam of his smog-jacket.

"You could say that," Abe mused. "Looks more 'feudal' to me."

"Doesn't matter," Kaleb cut back in. "We're stayin' away from them, so no sightseeing." One by one, the screens flickered into nothing, and Robin watched the beautiful valleys and majestic peaks disappear with a heavy heart. "We'll finish briefing with the video Prof-Zock put together when we're in orbit on Sunday. You boys have the rest of the afternoon to yourselves: get drunk, visit the clinic, say goodbye to your wives, whatever… because tomorrow we're loading and leaving." Ableman eyed Simon critically at the mention of "wives," and the gaunt representative, checking to make sure Kaleb wasn't watching, flipped him off and sneered. "What're you all waiting for? Get off'a my ship!"

Technically, it was the Channel's, but apparently no one felt like correcting him.

Dexton fled first, Abe following closely behind, and Robin and Simon trailed out together—not by any conscious choice on Fairweather's part: he merely wanted to stay in the same room as the greatest hunter who ever lived as long as possible. As they left, Simon sidled closer to him and slipped a small, leather pouch into his hands. Plastic rotobucks clicked and rustled inside, and Robin looked at his unpleasant superior with undisguised astonishment.

Nowell scowled at him.

"For your lady friend. Believe me, kid: money's all they care about. 'Sides, that's not mine anyway," Nowell slid his pale hands into the pockets of his smog jacket and slowly waltzed away down to the lower decks. "It's Abe's." Snickering and snorting, greasy hair flopping in the stale, recycled air, Simon disappeared, leaving Robin by himself with a sack of money.

Looking down, Robin wrestled the small zippered pouch open, revealing nearly a hundred "black stackers".

Cue the moment of disbelief, aaand done…

"_What? Wha…What?! I could buy an entire District with this! Ohmygod I'm going to put this in the ban—no not the bank—under my mattress?—no, no I need to spend this—I need boots and a smog-jacket—scratch that, no smog on 1128—I need a parka, swimsuit, maybe some slacks, UV-con, an auto-focus lens—does the mag-cam already have one?—wait, then what about Jenna?—should I leave her some?—I can't even get inside—fuck her—but she might take me back—no, it won't be worth it just keep the money—but Nowell gave it to me to—FUCK her and keep it!—I… I… shit… this is Abe's money—did Nowell cheat to get this?—nah, he wouldn't do that, would he?—I'm not giving it back—then should I leave it with Jenna?—bad fucking idea—What do I do?!"_

Conflicted, Robin put the pouch in the ripped lining of his corduroy and slowly made his way out of the ship.

Down the stairs. Left through the rec-room. Right into the bunk halls. Past the cockpit—Abe inside flipping switches—"Get some rest Fairweather."—"Yes, sir." Through the main umbilical to the holding cells. Lowered into the hangar on the platform with a dull thump.

Dust billowed from the cement floor, obscuring the light of the afternoon sun through the open bay doors. Airman's Field lay in the distance, grass brown and white and black from radiation leakages and magnetic damage. Robin smelled something burning.

"Hey, Fairweather!"

Leaning on the edge of the gaping bay doors, waiting—impatiently, of course—was Duwain Dexton III.

"Got plans?"

* * *

**You are! Thanks for reading.**


	8. Chapter 8

_ They knew us before we knew them. Machines from the heavens watched us—all of us—for months. The hunter knew everything: our townships, our conflicts, our pain and our power. The knowledge was passed between them during their long journey, and soon all knew. To protect the perverse interests of their society. To protect themselves. To enjoy themselves._

_ They knew because they watched—listened._

_ Robin knew us, and they were coming._

**Chapter 8**

"Fuckin' horses, can you be_lieve_ it?"

"No Dexton, I can't."

"I mean I've seen some weird shit in my day, but this is just s'rreal, y'know?"

"Yeah…"

"I jus'… dude, y'know?"

"Yeah… I _know_."

It was midnight, but the sun never set on the New Metro Skyline. Gaseous spheres of energy orbited the towering spires of the outer city, weaving around each other in intricate patterns of red and yellow and green. Neon magboards traveled the skyways, advertising contest on several of the smaller stations, "hard" drinks, and aphrodisiacs from across the solar system. The city shone with the light of progress, and, right then, Robin didn't really care.

It was his third time in New Metro at night, and the novelty had worn off.

"I am shoooo ready to get out there!" Dexton slurred from his stool, swigging on a mug of BluBalls', "Aren't you?"

Robin looked out the glare-streaked picture window of the Sky Tumbler, an 82nd floor bar in the Ministry of Private Entertainment, searching past the bleeding lights and ads for the great black void of Old Metro. It wasn't hard to find it: an enormous, lightless hole in the world running from District Twenty to the Central Waste Station. The mountain of garbage, pesticides, radiation, and rotting flesh disappeared into the thick smog of the Inner City—a cloud that never rained on the richer, outer districts—and Robin imagined briefly that he could see its peak before scanning the dark districts radiating from the mountain's reeking, compacted base.

Somewhere in the darkness, Jenna slept.

"Robby? Bud, you list'nin'?"

"Yeah, Dex. I'm listening."

"Well are ya ready 'r what?"

"Yes. Yes I think I want to get as far away from here as I can, if just for a little while."

A magboard floated past the Tumbler's window—"BluBalls': like a kick to the scrotum!"—briefly blocking out the sprawling panorama below.

"Tha's what I'm talking about!" Dexton gurgled, rubbing his crotch with a pained expression. "Gonna be fucking sweet, man."

"Sweet," Robin echoed, smiling softly. "Sweet…"

The bartender swung by, cleaning a glass. "You boys had enough?"

"Nah, nah keep it—cum-heh—coming."

"Dex, it's late. We should get back to the Exxy," Fairweather urged in an absent-minded sort of way, still looking out the window. They _did_ have an early day tomorrow.

"C'mon Robby! Jus' one more!"

Robin snorted. Seven hours with Dex and he'd graduated from "Fairweather" to "Robby." That had to be some sort of record. The cameraman smiled wider, recalling how he'd spent his day since the science briefing.

After Dexton met him in the hangar he insisted they both go to New Metro Clinic—the one on the fashionable side of the outer city—because it "gave him the chills" when he went by himself. Robin, still trying to figure out what to do with his small fortune, agreed to accompany him.

Soon, he was waiting in the cleanest room he'd ever seen. White, plastic walls glowed with fluorescent light, bathing the entire clinic in soft glow. No posters adorned the walls; no protruding furniture clumped together past the reception area. The halls were blank, white tunnels—soothing pathways into the healthy womb of the building. He sat, naked except for a hospital gown, on a Ray-bed, waiting for a medical technician to give him his Radiad injection. Dexton had been placed in the room adjacent. Robin remembered hearing him complain about the temperature.

The doctor entered—nameplate: Errikson—and there was a pinch in his stomach. The needle was long, but Robin had had a back-alley radiation treatment before. Needles couldn't ever scare him again after having a glorified medical rapier stuck in his belly-button. A short sting and a rush of warm nausea later, Robin was handed a pack of Radien suppositories and booted into the machine-swept streets of East New Metro.

Once again, Dexton had been waiting.

He knew about the sack of rotobucks.

_"C'mon man, how much?"_

_ "Uh… like ninety stackers?"_

_ "Ninety? You have _ninety _stackers and you're wearing that?! Fuck, Robin, I need to get you rollin' for a strollin'!"_

And so it came to pass that Duwain Dexton III, a man with inhibitions of a drunken ferret, took Robin clothes called himself straight as an arrow, but as the smaller man led him around Metropolis Nights in search of satin pajamas, Robin couldn't help but wonder if sexual preference was hereditary.

Seven bags of assorted clothing—for _ALL_ seasons—sat clumped round Robin's barstool, and he still had around sixty stackers in his new, obsidian roto-wallet. His riches nearly halved, Faiweather felt very little remorse at spending so much on simple clothing. It wasn't like he was getting any of his stuff back from Jenna's flat before the big send-off, anyway.

Taking another sip of his water—_"Dex is drinking enough for the both of us…"_—Robin traveled back to that afternoon: walking the NMU holo-boardwalk, catching a scratch baseball game in Shulemkeh Park, and finally making their way to the Tumbler to drink the night away. He felt… peaceful. He enjoyed himself, not thinking about Jenna, the flat, his new job—it was nice. Dex was a cool guy, if a bit impulsive, and, after a day of mindless wandering and talking with him, Robin considered the excitable mechanic a friend.

Regardless of any new-formed kinship, however, Robin had one more thing to do that night. Dex would have to skip his last round of drinks if he wanted to make it back to _Sheila_ before daybreak.

"Up an' at 'em, Dex. You've had enough. Besides, there's one more thing I have to do tonight."

"S'that girl, huh? You haf'ta see _her_ right?"

_That girl_… yeah. Robin wanted—needed—to see her again. Just for a minute. One more time before he left…

He had something to give her.

"Y'know th'r's a satCOM on the ship, right?" Dex gurgled, trying to coax the bartender back over with head gestures.

"Do you have the number?"

"Y-Ye… I think so."

"Okay, Dex. One more drink, eh?" The copilot of the _Satan's Grandma_ slurred something in response before falling from his stool, clutching his crotch. Robin turned back to the window, gazing out into the colorful night. "Yeah… One more drink."

A stacker to pay Dexton's tab and two more into the pocket of the mag-cab pilot left Robin with fifty-seven of the black rotobucks left in his wallet. He'd never had a wallet before, and the heavy, stone tube felt unnatural—almost weapon-like—as it hung from his belt. It was one of the more expensive models, shiny black obsidian laced with streaks of white marble. The pressure plate for the coin depositor on the bottom face of the heavy cylinder was a polished brass, and Robin was loathe to press it, lest he leave a thumbprint and ruin it's pristine shine. Dexton had even made him get it engraved:

_Property of_

_Robin Sudesquet Fairweather_

_333679 East District 9, Apt. 229, Old St. Metropolis_

"_Black Mamba"_

Robin wasn't proud of that last part…

The black rotowallet found its way back to Robin's belt as he briskly trotted away from his waiting taxi toward the address engraved in the "Black Mamba's" weighty, shining side. The waster had neglected their street again, and the cameraman had to weave amongst several rectangular garbage receptacles that crowded the narrow entrance to his old—just Jenna's, now—tenement complex. Graffiti marred the doors to the lower-level rooms, lit up by the dim, flickering lights of the building's lanterns: gang symbols, penises, and comparisons of one tenant's mother to a "piece of skunt-licking overseer bait."

Down the hall, left, left again, then up the narrow, dirty stairwell to the third floor he went, pausing at the sight of a familiar crumpled obstacle in his way. Irritated, Robin carefully leapt over a corpse cooling in a puddle on the third landing, hoping to avoid getting blood on his new boots.

"Dumbass new tenants," Fairweather grumbled, scraping his soles on the ragged, wet carpeting of the next flight of steps before moving on. It was late, he was tired, and all he wanted to do was see the woman he was—used to be?—in love with. He'd dealt with enough bodies on compactor duty over the years, and he had no patience with people who couldn't dispose of their waste properly. "Learn how to use the damned disposal chute…"

Whether dead of an altercation, an accident, or natural causes, it didn't matter: the body was a damned nuisance, and would eventually make someone else's job much harder. Robin felt sorry for the poor compacter who would have to come up and get it.

He peaked the fourth flight in a few seconds, quickly spotting his door despite the blackness. The hall lights in this part of the building had burnt out, but, luckily, there were no more obstacles to contend with as Robin was lead by muscle memory to Jenna's apartment—#229.

Three steps and he was there… and he couldn't help but smile despite the late hour.

The door was still turquoise.

He'd painted it himself… the day after they'd had a fight—not _the_ fight: an old one that was easily resolved. He got the color off an old man traveling the understreets, selling odds and ends. Robin hadn't expected the door to change in the three days he'd been absent, but the patch of color was a welcome sight.

Robin raised his arm to knock, but quickly staid his hand. It was almost two AM. He couldn't wake—shouldn't wake—her, could he? But he had to see her… even if he wasn't sure he loved her anymore. He needed some sort of goodbye, or something.

He could just leave the money in the mail-tube…

Fuck…

Fairweather fidgeted in front of his old home, caught between fantasy and reality in an endless whirlpool of self doubt, desire, and resignation. He knew that if he knocked she wouldn't answer, no matter how much he wished she would… but at least it would wake her up and… and she might hear him out. Robin reached into his jacket lining for the note he wrote her—"This should cover the my rent. *997*0004868."—and brushed up against something smooth and metallic: the old coin.

He fingered the quarter in his pocket, remembering how he found it—how he had felt. It had been only three days since then, and he was ready; he was ready to leave whether Jenna acknowledged him or not. Pulling the small, metal disk into the open air, Robin traced the ancient Latin embossed in shining silver surface with his thumb.

He'd flip for it. Yeah, that was it: chance would determine Jenna's fate that night.

Heads—he would ring the buzzer and try hope to God she opened the door.

Tails—he would drop the note and the money through the mail tube and leave. If she wanted to talk she could call him.

Ceremoniously, Robin craned his neck to the ceiling and flicked his thumb. The coin sailed upward, a small, dark lump in the blackened hallway, and Robin went for the catch. He missed, and the coin clattered to the stained linoleum of apartment 229's closed threshold. Stooping and squinting, Fairweather could just barely make out the image of an eagle, and he sighed—whether in disappointment or relief he didn't quite know.

The coin safely replaced in his pocket, "Black Mamba" was removed from Robin's belt, and he emptied the obsidian tube into Jenna's mail slot along with the note he'd written on the cocktail napkin he neglected to use at the Tumbler. Honestly, the rotobucks he'd just given away were worth almost five year's rent in that shit-hole, but Robin wouldn't need the money where he was going…

Besides… he was feeling great; lighter on his feet.

Irrationally, he imagined that having the money—George Washington hung heavy, hard and silver in his pocket—would just weigh him down.

Fairweather felt lucky.

Damned lucky…

… and tomorrow he'd get to test it.


End file.
